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Somatic Research

There's an article, in the just released issue of Massage and Bodywork, by Diana Thompson on Somatic Research; pages 116-121.

Would love to hear what everyone thinks. Did you think this was readable? Does it help you understand research?

Do you just not give a hoot one way or another because we've talked this to death?

Click here to read the digital version.

Thanks for your input everyone.

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Permalink Reply by Kim Goral on April 2, 2010 at 9:20am

Sorry I'm late on getting to this. I read the article and I think it's great. I thought it was clear and well written. I agree with Dianna that in the "real world", people mix and match different treatments rather than using just one in isolation, and that is important to keep in mind when doing research. However, I still think RCTs are critical, at least initially, to know what works from what doesn't and what piece of something is the "active ingredient". Then from there, once you know exactly what you have, you can go and look at how it can be integrated with other treatments.

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Permalink Reply by Kim Goral on April 2, 2010 at 9:24am

Julie

What did you find difficult to understand? Maybe one of us could help you through it to understand it better. And as for MTF resources- they already have a page with articles explaining research and how to use it. http://www.massagetherapyfoundation.org/or_methods.html
And just as a sidenote- my friend Mary White, who wrote one of the articles on that page about building a practice using research- she is not a researcher. She is just a massage therapist with no formal research background but who is passionate about learning more about the work she does and then using that knowledge to help her clients. It's a terrific article for anyone to read.

Julie Onofrio said:

I have to say I only glanced through it because I have this love/hate relationship with research. I think there was something in the beginning that I didn't understand so it made it hard to focus on the rest of it all. I frankly don't understand anything at all about research and wish someone would put it into real life terms - what does it mean when I go to work on my next client? What does it mean for my career? I actually have been thinking of approaching the massage foundation and ask them to teach me about research and then I will write about it on a 7th grade reading level which are the new requirements for many gov't documents! (I heard that from the WA State Board!)

Julie

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Jeffrey on April 6, 2010 at 4:05pm

I read the article twice, I found it very informative, it did help me understand a lot more about how difficult it is with massage therapy to get very specific replicatable outcomes.

Those of you concerned with research have alot more grey areas to deal with than is easily understood by those of us/me lacking an academic background.

Minimising how those grey areas cripple massage therapys ability to attract the correct proportion of cash it so obviously deserves, needs expert lobbying. The MTF may need to employ some brilliant minds who know how to bang some very big drums. :)

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Permalink Reply by Robin Byler Thomas on April 6, 2010 at 9:42pm

Hey Stephen,

How are you? You may be right about the need for lobbying. We have better folks than I working in the political realm. It is interesting, however, that over 30% of people polled said they use some form of CAM therapy and MT is one of the most requested (2009 National Health Statistics Reports). With these increasing numbers we deserve the research funds.

Thanks for your input.

Stephen Jeffrey said:

I read the article twice, I found it very informative, it did help me understand a lot more about how difficult it is with massage therapy to get very specific replicatable outcomes.

Those of you concerned with research have alot more grey areas to deal with than is easily understood by those of us/me lacking an academic background.

Minimising how those grey areas cripple massage therapys ability to attract the correct proportion of cash it so obviously deserves, needs expert lobbying. The MTF may need to employ some brilliant minds who know how to bang some very big drums. :)